Review: ‘The File on Thelma Jordon’

Thelma Jordon unfolds as an interesting, femme-slanted melodrama, told with a lot of restrained excitement.

Thelma Jordon unfolds as an interesting, femme-slanted melodrama, told with a lot of restrained excitement.

Scripting [from a story by Marty Holland] is very forthright, up to the contrived conclusion, and even that is carried off successfully because of the sympathy developed for the misguided and misused character played by Wendell Corey.

Corey is seen as an assistant d.a., a husband and father. One night, after a quarrel with his wife Joan Tetzel, he is intrigued by the Barbara Stanwyck character. It leads him to further pursuit and a hot amour.

Stanwyck is pretending to be a poor cousin to her rich aunt. When the latter is killed by a house-breaker, Corey attempts to remove evidence which would point towards Stanwyck. Despite this, she is charged with murder.